October 4, 2012 : Cairo Day 24 : Khan El-Khalili

How many Globalites can you fit into a taxi?

Six if two of them sits in the passenger seat!

Some friends and I went out to shop at Khan El-Khalili this afternoon. To get there, we had to get a cab. The cab driver did not object to the fact that there were SIX of us and we made it work, but it was extremely UNSAFE! No one wore a seatbelt and two of the girls were in the front! To describe traffic in Cairo, just imagine rush hour 24 hours of the day with no traffic lights, stop signs, and no street regulations with pedestrians walking as they please. It was quite the experience. So many people laughed at us–or perhaps it was with us since it was pretty funny (but still very dangerous). It took about 45 minutes to get there due to traffic but we paid three pounds each so it was relatively cheap. But…it was so dangerously fun.

These are just some of the things we heard in the market. The shop owners are not afraid to shove scarfs and other items in your faces. They will force things upon you and it most definitely does not help that I have Minnesota Nice running in my blood. However, I think that I’ve been doing a pretty good job at ignoring shop owners. I find myself easily hushing out the desperate attempts to convince me to buy things. It used to be way out of my comfort zone at the beginning of the trip but now it’s like second nature. After a while, you just get use to all the hassling. Because I’m Asian, I noticed that I do not get harass as much as that of my Caucasian friends.

I bought two tunics for 130 pounds after bargaining, two scarves for 75 pounds when one is originally 45 and the other 100, and perfume for 25 pounds. The shop owner also ended up giving me a perfume bottle for free.

I had fettuccine with some spicy tomato sauce that wasn’t spicy at all with smoked salmon for dinner from Diddos. It’s the strangest combination of all time and it didn’t taste good either. I wouldn’t recommend what I had but I would recommend the restaurant if you ever visit Zamalek.

Oh, and I also had mushroom soup. It was delicious!

I had shawarma for lunch this afternoon and it was soooo delicious! I’m definitely getting it again so I can take a picture of it.